


So Shines A Good Deed In A Weary World

by RobinsGirlWonder



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-15 16:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12324426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinsGirlWonder/pseuds/RobinsGirlWonder
Summary: A series of interconnected drabbles for theWondertrevnet Drabble-a-Thon!Participating Days:Day 02: StrandedDay 04: Everything For YouDay 06: ThemysciraDay 07: October 2017





	1. Close Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Stranded.

 

Her head was spinning. She tasted copper.

The acrid stench of smoldering metal and burning fuel filled her nostrils, then made its way to her lungs.

It was enough to make her cough.

Her eyes were closed, and she wasn't particularly fond of opening them. The throbbing in her hadn't subsided and the threat of more stimuli only served to remind her of the potent wave of nausea forcing her stomach to roll.

One moment, she had been flying towards Circe, sword and shield at the ready.

The next, the witch had screamed an enchantment and sent Diana reeling far from the Paris skyline.

But, that didn't explain the fuel and metal burning. If it had simply been a spell to bind or injure Diana, then she would have been able to recover mid-air.

Finally, Diana opened her eyes.

She did not know where she was. The terrain was foreign. The stench and smoke that burned her lungs and eyes came from a downed military jet some yards away from her.

She was in the desert. The witch had thrown Diana several hundreds of miles to... She watched another jet scream overhead and scowled.  War torn Qurac.

Groaning, Diana tried to sit up, only for her body to brutally reject that notion. She shuddered, crying out with genuine surprise as she looked down to find a piece of rebar had gone through her back and was jutting out her front. She was against the cockpit of one of the downed planes, and a window support had lanced through her. Blood soaked her armor, dripping down to her leg.

She tried to turn her head, but couldn't. Dropping back down, she struggled to catch her breath. This injury would be minor, if only she could force herself up. But, Circe's spells often took much from her. This was no exception. With bloodied hands, she reached for her League communicator but found it missing.

She was stranded. The League had no way of knowing where she was.

"Gods..." She ground out, more curse than prayer. "There were less painful ways to test me..."

She tried to sit up again, but the pain lanced so sharply through her that she could do no more than cry out and lay back again.

If she didn't get up, she would bleed nearly to death. She was resilient, but she bled. And she would be weak. Closing her eyes, she fought to remain conscious as she gauged her next move.

"Diana. Are you all right?"

Her lips quirked in a smile, even through the haze of pain. She had wondered if he would appear to her.

When she was at her most desperate, he seemed to always know.

"I can't get up." She wheezed, coughing. "I think I should... sleep..." She breathed.

"Come on, Angel, we both know you better than that."

Diana's smile widened. It was not the first time he had come, it would not be the last. And as long as she kept her eyes closed... she could believe he was there. Again. Those jets were not the Qurac military firing on its own people. They were the errant explosions of thrown shells and grenades on a tarmac in Germany. With a tired chuckle, she shook her head and adopted his own parlance against him. "Bull shit. I was never this injured when I was with you..."

"Bullets are a lot easier for you to dodge than magic, I guess." She heard his footsteps in the sand around her, even though she knew it was impossible. "You need to get up, Diana. "

"If I get up, you have to go." She said softly, recalling how many times she had had this conversation in her own mind.

"I know. I wish we had more time." The words were crystal clear, a grounding point that made her heart twist and beg for release from the constant toil of defending this world. She knew it was the blood loss, but it was tempting nonetheless. "But, you need to save the world."

There it was.

"Now, get up, Diana."

Her hand moved to the sand beneath her, digging her fingers in as if to anchor herself in the face of what was to come. With a heaving groan, Diana forced herself to her feet as the rebar remained solidly attached to the cockpit. She stumbled forward, a hand to her side as she staunched the flow of blood and felt her body begin to knit itself back together.

She opened her eyes. He was gone.

"I love you, too, Steve." She breathed, smiling through the pain and the blood.

She had pulled him from certain death once.

He had repaid the debt countless times.


	2. Make A Wish

Over the decades, Circe had caused Diana any manner of heartache. She had exploited weaknesses, performed the cruelest of manipulations over the Amazons, the people of Man's World, and even the gods themselves.

But, this was the greatest sin of them all.

The battle had raged across the city. When she had realized that Qurac's latest devastation had truly been orchestrated by the god of war, she had sought him out with great impunity.

She did not expect him to bear Steve Trevor's face.

Circe's magic had been ancient and forbidden. The magic of Titans and monsters, used to summon spirits long dead to the earth for the service of others. But, this... this was different.

The witch goddess had restored Ares, god of War, and used the very soul of Steve Trevor to power the great magic.

He had twisted the face of a man she had not seen into a century into a mask of cruelty.

Diana had faltered at first. It had cost her. The god had hit her with the same divine lightning that ran through her body before she could come to grips with the reality. By the time, she recovered, he had moved onto his next conquest.

It had taken weeks of toil and suffering to find him. She had sought out Hades and prayed to the old god to explain how this was possible. Of course the only god to answer her would be the god of the dead. He was forever in supply, guiding souls to final rest.

"There is a price." The old god had said on the banks of the River Styx. It had taken her days to find the veil to the Underworld, but now that she was here, she would not be denied. "What you ask is not easy. And I cannot guarantee that you will have the result you wish."

"I will not see him suffer, Polydegmon." She pled, hoping to appease the great god who saw so many souls. "He deserves to rest. He deserves happiness."

" He wandered these shores. He would not cross to the paradise waiting for him."

Diana realized then what she had always hoped and feared.

He had come to her when she was close to death.

He had chosen to push her back to the living. It had been _him_.

"That fate is what awaits him. An eternity of waiting."  Hades motioned to the banks past him. "Ares took him because he would do anything for you. Would you be willing to do the same?"

"I would do _everything_ for him." She said, unfurling the lasso at her side. "Test me if you must. I will plead with you until the rocks themselves draw tears, just as Orpheus once did. Without him, I would never have become the woman I am. I would have remained on Themyscira, discontent but too worried of my mother's approval to every truly leave. He showed me that the horrors of Man's World do not remove their capacity for love. And I do this for love. As your wife once did."    

Hades was not an easily moved man.

He told her the price she would have to exact.

But, could she bring herself to do it?

The soul had been stolen from the fields of Elysium.

There was only one way to return it. Hades had been _very_ specific.

Now, in the wake of the horror, the destruction, the newly formed glass in the aftermath of the lightning thrown between gods, it was over.

Ares was gone. And so was Steve.

Diana found herself on the sand, cradling his head in her lap. Her hand ran through his hair just as it had all those years ago in the quiet inn room. Only there was no soft lamplight, no snow. He wasn't sleeping.

Even as Ares began to lose control of this vessel and Diana had thought to stop her attack, it was Steve himself who asked her to finish it.

As the tears streamed down her face, her hand petting his cheek, she stayed with him as the god had demanded.

If Hades could be trusted, if her pleas had moved his heart, she knew there was a chance, however slight, that their sacrifice would be honored.

_You must send his soul to me yourself. You must kill him, and only then shall I request this of the Fates._

_Are you truly willing to everything for him?_

As it turned out, she was.

She could love him enough to let him go.


	3. Count to Three

_One..._

She pulled the royal purple bolt of cloth free from its stand, watching it flow freely in the spirited winds of her island. With the great care of both lover, princess and goddess, Diana draped it over the washed and oiled body of Steve Trevor. Epione and Clio had insisted that Diana be absent for the preparation. The gentle hands of her fellow Amazons had stitched up his wounds and cleaned the blood, sand and grime.

 _But when his soul and life abandon him,_  
_send Death and sweet Sleep_  
 _to carry him away..._  
 _and there shall his brothers and his kinsfolk give him burial_  
 _with mound and pillar; for this is the due of the dead._

Diana had seen countless translations of the _Iliad._ This one felt most bittersweet.

A singular bolt of cloth, the color of the great king of the gods and her absent father. If he had been brought back to Man's World, she had never been given the opportunity to meet him. Just as well. In the days since the gods had been restored, they had seemed callous and weak. She had never expected Hades himself to be one of her greater allies.

_Two..._

Diana pulled the two drachma from her pocket. She had found them shortly after retreating into the comfortable world of antiquities and history. She had thought she could hide from her past. All she had to do was place them upon his eyes so that he would have the fare to cross the river Styx.

So he would wander no longer.

Could she bring herself to say goodbye in this fashion? The rites of her forebears had always seemed so warm and comforting. How could this feel so cold and cruel for him?

Diana brushed the tears away and gently laid the drachma on his eyes before turning towards the altar.

Her sisters would arrive soon. When they did, there would be no more time to consider her actions, to wonder if one could truly trust the Lord of the Dead.

The Great Polydegmon, he who received many and pitied so few...

_Three..._

She reached forward and took hold of one of the dried twigs in the altar. She gently lit it upon the one candle to Zeus, then with quivering hands, struggled to light the next candle to Gaia.

"Do you remember how you came to life, Diana?"

Her mother's voice made her startle, drawing a shaky breath as she turned to face the great queen Hippolyta. She wore the armor of a warrior with the black mourning robes befitting her daughter's consort. A century had passed, and she had no reason to honor Steve in such a manner... yet she never judged. 

Diana swallowed, ignoring the tight pain in her throat as she tried to stem the tide of grief. "That was a story, mother. I know the truth."

"Indulge me." Hippolyta took a few steps closer to her daughter. She took Diana's trembling hands in her own, then turned them both to the altar. "I told you that I..."

Diana swallowed, looking towards the candle to Zeus. "You sculpted me out of clay upon the shores of Themyscira." The Amazon slowly made her way to the first candle. "To Demeter, grant this spirit the strength of the earth itself..."

Hipployta nodded as Diana lit the candle, then helped her guide to the next. "To Aphrodite..." She intoned.

Diana followed, even as she cast a glance to her mother that suggested even Aphrodite's love could not soothe her grief. "To... To Aphrodite... I promise the fullness of my loving heart..." She lit the next candle, watching the flame dance in the wind before she moved to the next, continuing without her mother's urging. "To Athena, I promise to use this gift with great wisdom."

The third candle was lit.

Diana slowly took the first candle she had lit to the great mother Gaia, then held it in her hands. Her heart pounded in her chest, touched by a magic she had only felt when her own divine, godly power was at work. But, this was so much more. "Great Gaia, Great Mother, give the gift of life."

A gust of wind rushed through the pavilion. The candles were all extinguished at once, and the bronze bowls went clattering to the ground.

As Diana and her mother turned to face the wind, they found another sight all together.

Steve gasped, sitting straight up, gulping down lungful after lungful of air as if he had never known the sensation. As the two women stood, momentarily stunned and overwhelmingly grateful, he finally glanced over at them.

When he finally spoke, all he could manage in the most adorably befuddled and Steve way possible was...

"Is this Themyscira? And why am I naked?'


	4. Pure Imagination

“I’m not entirely sure what I just watched.”

The two of them sat on the sofa in Diana’s living room. It had been six months since Steve had returned to the world of the living. After weeks on Themyscira, he had finally asked to return to Man’s World. As it turned out, the fact that Circe had used his soul to power Ares like a battery had meant that he had vague memories and inklings of what the modern world looked like.

The first few months had been difficult, but not in the way she had expected. She had spent several years helping Charlie through his shellshock after the War, and she had prepared herself for such a transition for Steve.

To her great surprise, he had sought after all of the technology he missed with the voraciousness she had done in their first days in London. After a few weeks of learning about jet planes and LED lights and the basic concept of computers, Steve had demanded that they make up for the time he had missed in order. Since technology had evolved to the point of being touch-based, in some ways, Steve had found that easier.

As it turned out, since silent films had been one of Steve’s few guilty pleasures when he was not actively infiltrating German forces, Diana had determined that could be his conduit to how time had passed.

They started with _A Dog’s Life_ and the original _Tarzan of the Apes_ , the last two silent films Steve had seen before his fateful last mission.  From there, they gradually progressed into talkies.

Diana had selfishly watched his face light up as they watched _The Wizard of Oz_ for the first time and the transition from black and white to color made him laugh. He especially enjoyed the monster films and spent an entire day draped in a sheet walking like Bela Lugosi so he could sneak up on her.

“I’m alive and a whole century passed,” He’d said when she asked him about his unusually playful nature. “I’m allowed to be a kid for a little while.”

The two of them had watched _Casablanca_ in complete silence, even as her shoulders shook from tears as Ilsa and Rick said their goodbyes. They had paused in their journey through the movies after that. Steve had kissed her tears away and reminded her that he wasn’t leaving her again any time soon.

After that, they avoided most of the films about the Second World War, even over Steve’s protests that he _needed_ to see them. There would be time for him to be angry at the world. She wanted him to see the best, and he had relented.

Through the summer, that had made it through the Alfred Hitchcock, the American Western (which Steve absolutely adored), then the era of movie musicals. Steve was incredibly fond of those, and even forced Diana to get up and dance with him in the living room. In addition, they ran the gamut of films from the 1960s. From _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_ to _2001: A Space Odyssey,_ they went through more croissants and popcorn than Diana thought possible. 

As autumn had come, Diana had been unfortunately pulled away to deal with necessary League business. Steve continued on without her, and after a particularly rough week helping clean up in the aftermath of devastating hurricanes, she returned to find Steve discussing the nature of artificial intelligence and mutual assured destruction and space aliens. He had found the entirety of James Cameron’s work in the 80s and 90s.

Finally, the month of October had thus far allowed her the opportunity to share with him more modern films.

But, the film he had _insisted_ on watching today had been one she warned he would not enjoy, but he nevertheless wanted to see it.

“I told you, it was not as good as the books.” She lamented, turning to look at him.

“All that technology, all of that… movie _magic_ and they couldn’t get _A Princess of Mars_ right? I… I _loved_ those books!” Steve sighed, exasperated. “I mean, there was a reason we helped smuggle them across the lines.  Those were the most amazing fantasies I’d ever read, and this is what they came up with?”

Diana shrugged, trying not to show how amused she was by his reaction. “There is a rule of thumb that books adapted into movies are never as good.”

Steve huffed, still processing the visually stunning, yet ultimately confusing film. After a moment, he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. “Well, you were supposed to come to Man’s World and change everything, right? How come they didn’t call it Princess of Mars?” He poked her in the rib, making her squirm. “Huh? You’re the expert on this sort of thing.”

Laughing as he tickled her again, she grabbed at his hand and held it quite firmly away from her skin. “You want me to change the film’s title? I will do that immediately. Wonder Woman will make a passionate plea to restore the legacy of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels so that her boyfriend can see what only exists in his imagination.”

Steve looked at her for a long moment, then smiled. She knew that look. “I love you.”

Diana finally released his hand and let him pull her closer. “I love you, too.”

“Do me a favor, though?” He asked, drawing her closer. “Change the movie industry tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll live on pure imagination.” Steve drew another chuckle out of her as he pulled her into his lap.

That night, as he had many others, he reminded her that there was only one princess he needed.


End file.
